Growing
by AishiExcel
Summary: How did the Zeroes become what they became? A look into the lives of the painless ones.... Youji x Natsuo M for blood and violence, possible sexual references at times
1. Meeting

**Growing**

_(Loveless)_

Summary: The Zeroes weren't always as they are now. How did they become the things they became? A collection of peeks into their private moments. (Youji x Natsuo)

Rating: M, for lots of gore, swearing, and dark themes.

Pairing: Youji x Natsuo, possible offhand mentions of Yamato x Kouya or Ritsuka x Soubi

_About these stories: You can choose to read each section of Growing as a one-shot or as a part of a larger story. Although not directly sequential, each piece is linked to the next,and there's themes that run through all of them._

**Meeting**

Youji sat impatiently, fidgeting, waiting impatiently in the stuffy room. Nagisa-sensei had told him today was the day he'd been preparing for. Today he was to meet his other half… someone just like him who felt no pain, who had none of this strange sensation that other children talked of. Today he was going to meet his Fighter.

The door opened and a boy stepped through, a boy his age with determined green eyes and maroon curls spilling around his fluffy cat ears.

"Is that him?" Youji challenged. "He's _slow_. He doesn't look like anything special."

"I bet I could beat _you_ anytime," hissed the boy. "So they say you're like me. Is that true?"

"Of course it is," Youji boasted, his mint-colored tail twitching behind him. "My name is Youji."

"I'm Natsuo." The darker-haired child held out his hand to shake with his Sacrifice, and Youji accepted the challenge. As his hand clasped Natsuo's the fighter squeezed, tighter and tighter, testing if his sacrifice felt it. If this was the case, the boy said nothing, glaring defiantly out of a curtain of sea-foam colored hair as Natsuo tightened his grip to the point of cracking Youji's knuckles.

There was a long moment where the two appraised each other and then Natsuo yelled out and pinned Youji to the ground, biting and scratching him. Youji refused to take the abuse, flipping his fighter over and returning the punishment. A tussle erupted, and the adults in the room made no move to stop it, instead taking notes at the reaction the boys' meeting had caused. Finally, panting, bleeding and rumpled, the Zero children pulled apart, dusted themselves off, met eyes, and grinned.

**"I like him."**

Author's note: _In this story, I'm imagining the Zero boys to be about five or six. I think they'd have been introduced to each other at a young age to increase the strength of their harmony during battle. Anyways, being only young, they wouldn't quite comprehend that they are ALWAYS going to be zeroes, and will never feel pain, so they'd be testing to make sure their partner didn't suddenly start hurting_.


	2. Testing

**Testing**

**WARNING: This chapter contains blood and violence. Don't read if you'd be squeamish about such things.**

It had been a particularly eventless day and now Youji and Natsuo sat, bored senseless, in their room together, running sharp nails over and over each other's unfeeling skin. Natsuo propped himself up on one elbow and stared at his Sacrifice.

"I wonder how much I can take before I hurt," he said, grinning. "You should do something really bad to me, Youji. Something that would hurt an ordinary person and we'll see if it hurts me."

Youji grinned. "Ooh." He licked his lips. "With a knife?"

"Yeah, a knife," Natsuo said with a devilish giggle. "The one we took from the kitchens."

A few nights ago they'd smuggled a potential weapon from the kitchens in their teddy bears, and had been itching to use it ever since. Youji held it in his hand now, its solid weight reassuring to him. He looked at Natsuo's pale skin, searching for a place to make the first cut. He settled on one thin arm.

"Here goes." He drew the blade swiftly across the other boy's arm, drawing a thin red line behind it.

Natsuo wrinkled his nose. "That was nothing. Even for a normal person that's shallow."

Youji frowned but pressed down harder with the knife, deepening his mark, drawing more of the sticky, dark blood from under Natsuo's skin. In the darkness, it looked almost the same color as the fighter's hair.

"Come ON!" snapped Natsuo. "You call this damage? I think they gave me the wrong Sacrifice. I don't want you anymore. I'm going to get a sacrifice who has guts, who isn't afraid to hurt people-"

Rage bubbled up thick and hot in Youji's stomach, and he yelled out. "HOW ABOUT THIS THEN?" He slammed the knife forward and it connected with Youji's eye, and there was the sickening sound of it slicing through.

Both boys froze. One of Natsuo's pale hands reached up to brush his dark curls away from the injury and came away stained with blood. He felt it there, the knife handle sticking out of his eye almost comically. Blood and other fluids, fluids from inside his eye, drenched the side of his face. Suddenly he noticed that half of his world had grown dark.

"Does it hurt?" Youji asked with his stomach turning at the sight of the gore before him.

"No," Natsuo said, faintly at first, then repeating it angrily. "_NO_! IT DOESN'T HURT! It's… nothing." He stared directly at Youji, repeating again, this time with his voice sounding almost vulnerable, "it's nothing. I can't feel anything at all."

Author's note: _I was watching the anime recently, and I thought, WHY does Natsuo have an eye patch? Is it because he wants to look like a pirate? With no answers in sight, I decided to write this. I apologize for how violent and psychotic it is._


	3. Owning

**Owning**

"Hey, 'Tsun?"

"Yeah, Youji?"

"I was thinking the other day. Which one of us is the owner and which one is the owned?"

"I dunno, Youji." The Fighter rolled over on his side to drape an arm around his Sacrifice. "Maybe I own YOU."

"That can't be right," challenged Youji. His eyes lit up as he grinned wickedly. "The sacrifice gives the orders, and the Fighter has to obey. So I own you."

"But the Fighter does all the battle damage!" retorted Natsuo, his furry tail twitching behind him. "So I own you."

"Fine, I guess I own you and you own me," puzzled Youji. "Well, we're going to have to prove that somehow."

Natsuo puzzled over it for a minute, stroking his hands up and down his sacrifice's back. "Dunno."

"I've got it," Youji said with a playful smirk. "I'll mark you."

"Mark me?"

"Sure, cut my name into your skin and let it scar. Then you can do the same to me."

Natsuo giggled. "I like it."

"Roll over," Youji whispered into his Fighter's ear.

Natsuo turned onto his stomach, giggling, and Youji sat astride him, lifting up his shirt to reveal the smooth pale skin of his back.

"I'll be quick," he whispered into his fighter's cat ear. The blade sank into the smooth surface below him easily, and with just the right amount of pressure he dragged the knife along leaving a trail of blood and lines where the skin was seperated from itself. Line by line he wrote his name, hearing Natsuo sigh contently beneath him. He drew his name in characters on the soft skin before him as though it were a canvas, and then handed the knife to Natsuo. "Your turn."

Natsuo slid from below Youji and pinned him down by the hips. Rolling the sacrifice onto his stomach he engraved his own moniker into the same place where he bore the bleeding cuts that spelled out Youji. As he finished, he ran his tongue along the wound, tasting it.

_"Now we own each other forever."_

A/N: _This could happen anytime between the time when Natsuo loses his eye right up to the present. You decide. Although strange I find this idea oddly sensual…hmmm. _


	4. Marking

Marking

**This is another violent one. I'm just warning those of you who might not want to visualize burning flesh.**

The Zeroes had made a game and it was called Marking.

The zeroes disliked rules, so there were none, except the Way To Play, and that was simple: the boys took turns sitting together and 'marking' each other, leaving small trophies' on their partner's skin- bites, bruises, burns, scratches, scars…. they were fascinated with the lingering physical proof of their power to manipulate each other's physical state. Or maybe they just liked to hurt someone, whether or not the injury was felt. Either way.

However the game grew old quickly and there was needed a new variable, a new factor to bring some enjoyment to this little plaything. So they tried to Mark someone else…

"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP!!!

Their new toy was thrashing his body around in an attempt to escape as Youji held him down. Sweat rolled from his small, round face and Natsuo let a finger catch one drop.

"Do it already, Tsun!" Youji shouted as the kid attempted to squirm loose. _He's gonna get away._

Natsuo snapped back to reality. "Right." He pulled a small, red plastic cigarette lighter from his pocket and flicked the flame again and again, making the metal portion of the lighter hotter and hotter. Once the metal glowed red he released the flame and held it down to the child's arm.

The smell of singeing flesh rushed to meet them and the kid screamed. The zeroes watched in fascination the expressions that passed over his face as he struggled to move his arm away from the torturous pain, taking note of each one. _This is what pain looks like._ Their victim tossed his head; his eyes squinted closed as tightly as he could squeeze them, his yells becoming more and more frantic. Small drops of water rolled down his cheeks.

It was these that startled Youji and Natsuo the most. Youji let go of their prisoner and the traumatized boy leapt to his feet and ran off as fast as he could, no doubt to tell Nagisa-sensei about what her prodigies had done to him.

"What were those, Youji?" Natsuo inquired, slipping the lighter back into his pocket. "Did we break his eyes or something?"

"No, I've seen other kids do it too. It's called crying," the Sacrifice said matter-of-factly.

Natsuo was perplexed and it showed. He pulled the small plastic device out of his pocket and flicked its flame to life, running his hand back and forth over the dancing heat. "Why do they do it Youji?"

"Nagisa-sensei said it was because they were hurt or sad." Youji announced. He seemed less proud of his knowledge and more concerned by it.

His expression was mirrored by his Fighter. "But if we can't get hurt, Youji, can we cry?"

"I don't know," Youji confessed. He reached out to take his sacrifice's hand and the flame was trapped between them, licking at their skin. "I don't know."

A/N: _This wouldn't be long after their meeting; they wouldn't be any older than seven in this story. They're still very confused about what they are and how they're different to other people. By the way what they did to that kid is commonly called a Smiley where I live and one guy gave himself one that ended up in a scab the size of a fifty-cent coin. They hurt. )_


	5. Kissing

**Kissing**

I knew everything about 'Tsun and he knew everything about me. That was they way it was and that was the way it always would be. He finished my sentences, he knew what to say on the rare occasion I was upset about something. And I could do the same for him. We'd never spent a moment apart from the time we met at the age of 5, and I mean NEVER. We took baths together. We slept curled together at night. We thought we knew everything, especially about each other. But right now it felt like we knew nothing.

It started out with me, walking next to 'Tsun behind the school buildings one afternoon. I'd made a discovery while Natsuo was distracted… I saw a couple half-hidden behind bushes, doing something WEIRD with their mouths. It looked at first as if they were trying to swallow each other's faces. Their lips were locked together, and something strange was happening between them. I thought they might have been fighting over food. I turned to 'Tsun and tugged on his sleeve.

"Tsun! What is that?"

He laughed at me and shoved me a little. "Don't be stupid, Youji. That's called French Kissing. It's when two people kiss and stick their tongues in each other's mouth. Don't you know anything?"

I blushed, a tiny bit. Not much embarrassed me but I hated it when Natsuo knew something I didn't. "Oh. But… why do they do it?"

Tsun shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe it tastes nice. I have no idea; I guess only people who can feel understand it."

I felt a little better knowing that he didn't know it all. "Oh." I twined a piece of hair around my finger. "If we kissed, Natsuo, would we feel it?"

I had noticed these days how much people TOUCHED each other. Whether it was just a set of friends or a fighter/sacrifice pair like us, they were always holding hands or hugging in greeting. To congratulate someone they patted them on the back. To comfort someone they would hold them close and stroke their hair. I wondered if maybe, JUST MAYBE, this whole touch thing wasn't as bad as Nagisa-sensei made it out to be.

"I dunno," my fighter answered, and then he looked at me with that challenging look that I loved, that mischievous twinkle popping into his eyes. "Wanna try?"

I grinned in retaliation. "Sure."

We sat there for a second, and I spoke first. "Well. You do it."

"No, you do it chicken!" 'Tsun snapped. "Why do I have to go first?"

I swallowed hard. "Uh… right."

I leaned towards 'Tsun. I smelled his skin and his breath, and it made me blush. "I dunno what to DO."

"Just kiss me," he snapped. "In the movies they just kiss and don't spend so much time thinking about it."

I wanted to say 'this isn't a movie', but I chose that moment to press my lips against his.

I didn't FEEL it, so to speak. There was pressure, a slight push of his lips against mine. I didn't feel them, but I knew they were there. And so did my body. What I did feel was my heart pounding in my chest, my stomach turning, my mind racing. What I did feel was that I wanted to taste him. I ran my tongue along his lips and he parted them, allowing me entrance. My body was responding to this, too. It must have felt nice from the way my heart was beating. It must have felt nice from the way my hand reached around to grab his head. It must have felt nice because I didn't want to stop. I could taste Tsun as his own tongue moved along mine, battling me for control of the kiss. I kept this going as long as I possible could and finally we pulled apart. I licked his taste away from my lips and grinned.

I felt like I knew nothing. I didn't know how much I would enjoy that. I didn't know how much something I couldn't feel would affect me.

And most of all I didn't know how long I could wait to kiss him again.

A/N: _This could be any time from ages 10 to the present, but I'd say they'd be older than that. I'm thinking along the lines of 12. Youji and Natsuo would be oddly naïve because they don't really have other kids or role models to learn things from, so what they know about relationships and such they'd learn from TV or magazines. That's why Youji didn't know about a French kiss. And I think whether or not their nerve endings sent the signals to them that something felt bad or good, their body would react the same way. There are some exceptions like since they don't feel pain they wouldn't flinch from it, but they'd still sweat from heat. So… a kiss would still turn them on __ whether or not they knew it. I'll do one from Tsun's POV soon._


End file.
